April 27, 2007

Much digital ink has been spilled on this blog on the subject of howawesomeAugust Kleinzahler is, so I'm very happy to put up the first of his readings, a poem called 'Green Sees Things In Waves.'

Now, as you probably know, one of the main ideas behind this poetry month blog and all the audio I've been posting is that, as James McMichael said, "poetry is an aural medium," one that benefits from a good listen. But poetry is also something of a visual art--there's a beauty to the way it is laid on the page (more on this later today) and something soothing about reading a poem in your favoite book, even if you've read it a thousand times before.

And because of that, I'm teaming up today with Callie's poetry month initative over at her blog, Counterbalance. She's been posting favorite poems all month, some her own and some suggested by readers. I was happy to suggest this one, and for the text of this poem, I hope you'll visit her site here.

As Kleinzahler explains in his introduction to 'Green Sees Things in Waves,' the subject of this poem comes from his time spent working with homeless veterans, and I delight a bit in the idea of how stunned these guys must have been when, instead of getting a tightly laced poetry teacher in a suit and tie, they got a teacher who looked like he knew his way around the parts of San Francisco they'd been hanging out in and didn't even mind some swearing in their poetry.

April 23, 2007

Further confirmation of my theory that Robert Pinsky is a poet you'd want to invite to all your cocktails parties can be found here, where he judges a "Meta-Free-Phor All" between Stephen Colbert and Sean Penn from last Thursday's Colbert Report. (And in case any alert readers are wondering, Pinsky's Wikipedia page has already been changed to reflect the appearance.)

April 19, 2007

I really enjoyed the short time I spent in the studio with James McMichael. We hadn't recorded any long poems at that point, and I dug the way he just charged into two longer pieces. This poem, 'The British Countryside In Pictures,' works well when heard aloud, even though it is long, I think because of the narrative that runs throughout.

Perhaps proving what McMichael mentioned to me on his way out of the studio--'Poetry is an aural medium. It gets treated as if it's visual, but it's for the ear.'